The Tomb of the Unknown Severian

Roy C. Lackey · 21 Dec 2007, 05:16 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:16:28 -0600
Subject: (urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian
Message-ID: <002a01c84390$a6d52fc0$16c85a42 at rclackey.stic.net>

Jeff Wilson quoted and wrote:

>Tony Ellis wrote:
>> Where does this idea come from that 'the first Severian' failed the
>> test in Yesod? I've always understood that he passed.
>>
>> Severian doesn't tell us either way, but surely the fact that the
>> first Severian ended up with the power to walk the corridors of time
>> is a pretty big hint?
>
>Did he? Can you point out the relevant text?

Tony is right about Sev1 walking in time, if that's what you're asking
(CITADEL, last chapter). But it still seems almost axiomatic to me that Sev1
did not do whatever was necessary in Yesod to win a new sun. We are told
that only two other autarchs, Ymar and the Old Autarch, even made the
attempt before our narrator of URTH, Sev2, went there and succeeded.

If Sev1, sans Claw, had succeeded, why would agents of Yesod have gone back
in time to change anything? Why mess with success? They could only screw it
up.

Not to mention the paradoxes. Had Sev1 succeeded, then the white fountain, a
white hole whose light first reached Urth in Apu's era, would have covered a
minimum of 99.9% of its journey to the Red Sun by the time our narrator was
born. There would be no need for Sev2 to do what had already been done.

-Roy

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